Cowabunga!

 

If you live in Santa Rosa, California, you can hardly avoid one of the most famous dogs in the world, a gang of kids and the man who brought them to life - Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the "Peanuts" cartoon.

Schulz was born in November 1922 in Minneapolis and in 1958 he moved with his family to Sonoma County, first to Sebastopol and then to Santa Rosa, where he lived and worked until his death in February 2000. Two years later, in August 2002, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center was opened in Santa Rosa. I still remember those early days when I also met his second wife, Jean, during one of the very first events. Later, during middle and high school, Kaefer regularly worked there as a volunteer in the education room and as a camp counselor for several years. This museum is part of our family memories.

So when there was a special surfing exhibition in the museum, the Geek and I had to go. It was a very enjoyable way to escape the heat for a few hours.

But why "Cowabunga"? 

The Press Democrat, our local paper, wrote on April 24, 1990:

"The word 'cowabunga", created for a character on the Howdy Dowdy TV show in the mid-1950s, was adopted by the generation of kids who grew up watching the program and as teenagers used it as a term of excitement, especially among surfers. By the late 1980s it was being shouted by popular characters like Bart Simpson, an avid skateboarder, and Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who uses surfer slang."

And so does Snoopy.

According to the museum, "Charles Schulz was not a surfer but enjoyed living near the Pacific Ocean. He also always had his ears open for funny words and phrases. He never recorded when or where he first encountered surfer slang, but he used it to comedic effect as early as 1965. He may have heard it from his older children and their friends or perhaps in one of the many beach party films that were then popular." 

Even though Schulz, whose nickname "Sparky" is still used in Santa Rosa, did not surf, there is a very endearing photo of him on a skateboard together with his daughter Amy in the driveway of their Sebastopol home. The other photo is of him and two of his five children at the ocean where he frequently went.

To my knowledge, no one else of the Peanuts gang surfed and so Snoopy became the lone surfing beagle. Not many of those are around, I assume.

I liked the way many of the comic strips were displayed in the museum, giving it the beach, sand and ocean atmosphere (I'm not mentioning the sun here, because that shiny ball often hides above the marine layer at our coast).

There were also a few sketches that Sparky did before creating the actual comic of the day. They always landed in the waste basket, but his secretaries would often retrieve and collect them.

There is way more to write about our visit to the Schulz Museum, but I will leave this for a later post. This has already become very long. Since there are so many faces, much beloved around the world, I will join Nicole for this week's Friday Face Off.

Drawing With My Non-Dominant Hand

 

This will only be a short post. Last week has been quite crazy due to a rather large order I got in my Etsy shop and many things didn't get done that I have to do this week before it heats up again, especially in the garden.

Back in April (yes, I know, I have a lot of catch-up to do) I took one of the short workshops by Laly Mille. Her style of art work speaks to me and I like her calm and very personal way of teaching. I think this class was called "Flower Flow", but maybe I remember this incorrectly - well, anyway I call it this way. The most surprising 'thing' I learned in this class was that I can actually draw with my non-dominant hand. We were encouraged to use a Stabilo All pencil - if I remember correctly I actually used an aquarellable graphite pencil by Faber-Castell, one of my favorite tools. First, I gessoed some book pages and music sheets, then with my non-dominant hand I drew flowers and leaves on those pages after they had dried. The flowers were then "smudged" with matte medium. It became quite addictive and I created way more than I needed (they will go into some future artwork or in my art journal).

With some bits of scrapbook paper I collaged four pieces of watercolor paper and then arranged my flowers and leaves with the images of Japanese Maple leaves I had found in a German magazine and glued everything down when I was happy with the design. I drew a few more flowers and leaves directly on the collage, used a bit of gesso to mute the colors of the Japanese Maple leaves, a piece of gauze and some subtle watercolor. Done. 

I am quite happy with the results. They aren't master pieces, but it was fun to make them.

Have you created anything recently? Or taken a class that you really liked?

Where Birds Get Together

 

Before I tell you about our "big" project we accomplished in May, I want to briefly get back to my last post about the nesting Mourning Doves. Someone asked what happened to the babies after one of the parents was caught by the hawk. Thankfully, the little doves had already left the nest when this happened. The other parent is still on his or her own (I really can't tell whether it's female or male) and sometimes hanging around our backyard.

Now let's get to our May project. We need to go way back more than 25 years when we were still living in Germany and bought a sun umbrella by Ombrelloni di creco, a German company who manufactured their beautiful sun umbrellas in the village near Tübingen where we were living. These umbrellas are of very high quality and the frame is made of wood.

Fast forward more than 20 years and the fabric of this heavily used sun umbrella started to deteriorate. Because of its rectangular shape we weren't able to find a replacement, so the wooden frame went into the shed. And finally we had a brilliant idea - turn it into a bird feeding station.

The Geek started the process by sanding the whole thing down.

After he had completely disassembled it, we varnished it on a warm Sunday - four coats with two hours each of drying time in between. Of course it took the entire day to do this. Kibeau was our supervisor.

After a couple days of drying out, the Geek re-assembled the frame, again under the supervision of Kibeau.

Finally we were able to put it up - here it is in all its glory. 

The hummingbird likes to hang out on the thin rope that stabilizes the "branches" of the new "tree".

So do the House Finches, before they land at the feeders.

The Hooded Orioles are frequent visitors at the little bowl filled with organic grape jelly.

But look at that! The California Scrub Jay likes that jelly, too! Can you see all the red stuff in his beak?

I love to see the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees at the feeders. They buzz in and out and always seem to be busy.

The Oak Titmouse first seems to check things out before settling down for a snack. They also like to nibble the jelly.

And of course it took the squirrel less than 15 minutes to figure out the new feeder opportunities!

With all these sweet faces I'm joining again Nicole's Friday Face Off.

The 366 Project: June

 

Already July - I almost can't believe it. Somehow I had the illusion that with retirement things would slow down a bit, but so far that hasn't happened.

So here's June:

Beside all the bigger and smaller events to celebrate Pride, we had one wonderful event happening in our garden - to be precise, on top of our solar system box. A couple of Mourning Doves had decided to build their (rather flimsy) nest there and raise their little family, all within three weeks or so. One evening while we had dinner outside the Geek discovered the nest. From that moment on, we observed the doves and learned a lot about them.

This is how it started out:

The parents took turns in sitting on the eggs, and very soon the chicks - called squabs as far as I know - had hatched. They were tiny and very hungry.

This was the day that the Geek took out our scope and mounted his phone on it. This is the setting and all the following photos (with the exception of the last dove picture) were taken this way by the Geek.

The little guys grew quickly.

Family photo:

It was quite astonishing to see how quickly the kiddos grew.

This is the set-up as a whole where they chose their home:

Then they were gone. A couple days later, one of the parents became dinner for a hawk family - sigh. Well, this is nature.

We have the memories of these beautiful short weeks.

Yesterday we had the first day of a heat wave and what better way to end such a day and the month with a refreshing cool Bavarian beer, a Paulaner Hefeweizen. Cheers to Elizabeth and Bleubeard on T Tuesday!

A very happy Canada Day to all my friends in Canada.